


when we broke up

by marilags



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, F/M, Romance, journalist!reader
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-12 09:33:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29507658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marilags/pseuds/marilags
Summary: atsumu and breakups never really match well together.
Relationships: Miya Atsumu/Reader
Kudos: 18





	when we broke up

**PAINFUL BREAKUPS** were never really Atsumu’s thing.

To be fair, it was nobody’s thing.

That’s why he would play things casual and cool, a cheeky grin on his face and a wandering hand on his casual date. If things get boring, they get boring. And it was mutual. And the two parties were fine with it. No strings attached.

Until he met you.

You are the bright fascinated person that caught his eye from the corner of the bleachers. He knows you, he muses. He’s seen you at the bleachers before, way back in his highschool matches, always scribbling on your notepad. _Ah-ha_! He thinks as his fingers brush against the ball. Atsumu leaves it at that. After all, he had to get his head in the game. This was critical and his teammates would beat him if his mind was wandering somewhere else. When he approached you, sweat still dribbling down to the tip of his chin and chest heaving from exhaustion and excitement, Atsumu found out you were a sports journalist for some news team that didn’t mean too much to him…

until he talked to you.

“Wait you’ve been to lots of volleyball matches? Even the small ones?” Atsumu says as he opens up a bottle of water you gave him when he walked up to you. He mentioned how you seemed familiar but couldn’t quite place it. Now, the both of you were sitting down on the pavement behind the large building. He just trailed after you like a puppy and found himself and you sitting on concrete. You said you liked to gather your thoughts about the game behind buildings, sitting on pavements.

The blonde watches you nod as you nervously fold your hands in front of you, on your lap over your notebook, “Yeah, I’ve gotten to talk with some of your teammates and their old teams too, back in the day except yours. And you, of course.”

Gears start turning in Atsumu’s head, he smiles at you—his usual charming toothy smile—and says, “We could talk now. I know a nice restaurant up ahead that you’d certainly like.”

“We’ve both got a press con to attend, remember?”

“Oh— ” Atsumu totally did not remember that. But he can be quick, too. “You’ll be there right? Then see you after?”

“You sure you don’t want to eat with your teammates after such a victory, Miya?” He likes the way you peer at him and raise your eyebrows in wonder.

“I’d gladly pass that up for you, you’re too beautiful for me to miss again.”

“You say that but I’ve probably been to many of your games already.”

“Eh, Fate was just waiting for the right time,” he says with much confidence, studying the glimmer in your eyes.

“Fate?”

“Yeah, Fate.” There’s an impish smile decorating his lips, a smile that you would later kiss as he smiles. He loved those moments.

“You think it’s Fate that we’re meeting now, Miya Atsumu?”

“Yeah, is it bad if I think so?”

You chuckle and shake your head, “No, no. I think that’s sweet. Real cute, too.”

“We both think the other’s cute,” Atsumu grins. He knows he scored. And this made him feel victorious on so many levels. “We definitely should date.”

You initiate the first hand contact, standing up and leaning down to pat his shoulder, “But first, I’ll be grilling you at the press con later. See you, Miya.”

Atsumu is lovestruck, fascinated. He watches you walk away and he gapes at you in the conference room, your knowing smile plastered in his mind. _Maybe it’s time to quit casuals_ , the boy thought.

And that he did.

***

**SUNLIGHT WAS ABUNDANT** and the skies were blue the day you broke his heart. The two of you had this sworn promise of always saving Sundays for picnic dates. With his and your busy schedules, it was the only way to spend time with each other.

Barely.

The Picnic Sundays before this were spent without each other. So, he insisted on this picnic date. “The weather’s been nice lately, don’t you want to sit out under the sun with me?”

You were sitting in front of the mirror in your shared room, it was a few minutes before work. “All of a sudden?”

“Not all of a sudden,” Atsumu wrapped his arms around your waist and placed his chin on your shoulder looking at the reflection of the two of you. He meets your eyes in the mirror. “Just missed the old days.”

“Okay,” you shrug him off so you can turn around and hold his face between your hands. “We’ve got stuff to talk about, anyways.”

He does not want to _talk_.

The blonde athlete knew what was up and he didn’t want to do anything about it. Atsumu could feel the shift in the relationship. It was like a large earthquake had shaken things up and everything— everything looked like a tragedy. A tragedy after two years. Atsumu is trying to build things up again from the dust of what it was before but it was always crumbling.

Lunch was long finished when you started the _talk_. Atsumu and you were lying down on the lush green grass, talking about the old days when you pull up a dandelion and say,

“I’ve got something to tell you.”

“Can’t it wait?” He immediately says. “The weather’s really good, we should enjoy it more.”

“It can’t wait, Atsumu. It can’t,” you tell him. “It will only feel like lying if we wait.”

“I don’t want to, (Y/N). I don’t want us to talk about this,” he bit his lip, trying for the taste of metallic blood, before pushing words out of his mouth. “I don’t want us to break up.”

He hears you sigh and it’s got to be the most heartbreaking sigh he’s ever heard, especially since he knows what that means. You are over this whole thing. There was the doom of finality waiting for him at the end.

“We have to break up. I’m tired, really. We’re both tired, aren’t we?”

Atsumu stays silent. You finally said it.

“I feel like we’re going nowhere, you know? Stale, something like that. We’re both too busy for each other and I… ”

He turns around so he’s looking at your side profile, gazing up at the blue sky and the dandelion on your hand. Atsumu finds the bitter smile on your lips and he wished he could change it to something sweet like when he first met you.

“…I don’t want to lug around someone I don’t love anymore in my life. You deserve better than me, Atsumu. We deserve better than this.”

“Can’t we try to be okay again?” He pleads.

“Sometimes things just fall apart, Atsumu. And maybe, this isn’t how Fate wanted us to be.”

Atsumu watches you blow the dandelion seeds away and he could feel his heart dispersing along with them. Under the pretty weather, he’s got the biggest and most painful heartbreak inside him. He wonders how one could ever heal from something so big, so painful. Will he ever heal?

You sit up but Atsumu remains in his position, curled up on the grass with the wind blowing at him. He could feel your lips peck on his head and your fingers ruffling his hair.

“I’ll go ahead. It was a good two years, Atsumu. Find someone who’ll love you more than I did, okay?”

To Atsumu, that was all too cruel. Too cruel of you to tell him to find someone more than you when all he’s ever really loved was you. You were the first one he’s bared himself vulnerable to and now you’re the first one to crush him. How could he find someone more than you, his world? Astronauts can’t even find a place better than the Earth, how could he find someone better than you?

Atsumu wished the ground would just pull him down as he watched your footsteps walk far from him.

***

**SOMETIMES ATSUMU WONDERS** what it feels like to be you. He would lie down on his bed and stare at the ceiling only to find his thoughts finding their way back to you. And he wonders. Atsumu wonders how pain feels like for you. He wonders how it feels like on your side. He wonders if it took you trays of beers, too. He wonders if he haunted your dreams like you did to his. He wonders if your head fills with what-ifs just like him. He wonders if you curled up in the bed and wished you could sleep the whole pain away instead. He wonders if every glimpse of the outside world reminded you of him because to him, you did. You were his world, always. Everything about the world would remind him about you. Every little thing.

Fate sucks.

It really does suck. While he wonders about this for the nth time, he pushes his grocery cart around the mart. As he studies the products before putting them down to his cart, Atsumu’s got his earphones on, a foreign language trying to paste itself in his mind. Nowadays, he’s been trying to find other hobbies to focus on like learning a new language. His other hobbies, like going on dates was well, ah, currently too painful for him. It’s been a year but Atsumu would rather study foreign languages than sit in front of a date and find himself wishing for you again. When he said this out loud to his brother, after a failed date, the twin tapped a spatula on his head and feigned shock.

“Are you the ‘Tsumu I know?”

“Stop it,” he tries to grab the spatula but Osamu only pulls his arm back and laughs.

“They really changed you, huh.”

“I really loved them, brother. Really did— Ow! Quit it!”

Osamu has hit him again on the chin with the flat surface of the spatula. “No heart to heart talks in my restaurant,” the boy says but he turns around and grabs a tea he had long prepared and an onigiri just for the brother. Osamu places it in front of Atsumu and continues to talk. “Eat up, let’s talk after I close up, okay? Want to hang out with the others later, too? We’ve got karaoke night and Kita’s celebrating a nice harvest this month.”

“Oh, I… ” Atsumu trails off. He’s got his scheduled filled with practicing with the team and sitting on the park, aimlessly staring at the horizon, wishing he could turn back time and somehow fix things. It was a pathetic schedule that he religiously did. Osamu knew that too, he tsked at his twin brother and rolled his eyes.

“You’ll need it, stop being a ballhead and enjoy tonight, whaddya say?”

“Fine,” he grumbles and shoves the onigiri in his mouth.

“For eating my creation so disgustingly, you’re paying for that.”

“‘Samu!”

Atsumu stares at the Nori paper in his hand, he chuckles at the thought of his brother. Maybe he could give making onigiris a try, another new hobby. He thinks about what else he’d need when he feels his cart clash into someone else’s. Immediately, Atsumu takes off his earphones and pauses the audio.

“Atsumu?”

His heart pauses then races when he glances at the other person in front of him. It was you. You look prettier than before. Prettier than the photos on your social media that he used to sneak peeks into before his friends would grab the phone from him. Prettier.

Happier.

He wonders why.

“Hey, it’s been a while.” Atsumu tells you as he pulls his cart back and disentangles the carts. His cart is finally free and he could run away if he could now. He doesn’t, of course. Atsumu takes his time to study your features, the curves and lines he missed. He’s always missed you.

“It has, how are you?” Atsumu hears you reply.

“Good,” he says. Lies. Things were barely good for him. “It’s been okay. How about you? I don’t see your names in volleyball articles anymore. You still writing?”

“I do, I just, er, well… ” he watches you rub a hand to the back of your head. “It was _different_ after the, you know, the breakup. So, I focused on other sports instead.”

“Really? That’s cool!” Atsumu musters. “You enjoying it?”

”Yeah, I am. It’s fun, not like volleyball but still great.”

“Can I ask you something?” Atsumu tries.

“Of course, what is it?”

“Did you miss me?”

The world stops for the both of you and he finds your features still and watches you contemplate your words in your mind before you softly smile and lean forward to place a hand on his own.

“I did, I missed you a lot, Atsumu. I wouldn’t have loved you if I didn’t miss you.”

“Then… ” _do you think we could try again?_ It doesn’t come out of his lips because you’ve spoken before he could.

“But I moved on, now. In fact, I’m, ah, I’m getting married.”

“You’re getting married.” He echoes.

“I am,” you tell him. “And if you’d like to come, I’ll send you the invite?”

Atsumu gently takes your hand off his and smiles at you. It hurts. It really does. He could feel his throat figuratively swelling up, stopping him from replying. He could feel his heart ache again. It pains him.

Heartbreak is no joke, especially when it’s over someone you really loved.

“No, it’s fine.”

“Oh, silly me. You must be busy— ” You wrap your hands over the handle of your cart.

“No,” he forces a smile. “I'm… I’m still not over you.”

“Oh?”

“That’s how much you meant to me. I… still love you. I guess.”

“You guess?” he watches you step back and smile. “Then that’s some progress.” The next words you say, he knows it’s platonic. He knows it’s genuine but all for the moments you two had spent together. “Love you, too, Atsumu.”

“I really hope things look up for you, okay?” he watches you take what you need from the aisle and walk away. “See you around, then.”

“Yeah.” The blonde boy sighs and runs a hand through his hair, it messes up the style and ends up with tufts sticking out instead. He puts his earphones back on and presses play. He hopes you were right, that he was on to some progress now.

Atsumu wishes that one day, he would be like you.

Moving on and saying platonic _I Love You_ s and not walking behind buildings after a game to gather his thoughts and sit on pavements.

**end.**


End file.
